


In For the Pull

by archea2



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: First Kiss, Humor, Language Kink, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 06:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/795125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson isn't the only man with a gift for tongues.</p><p>(Revised version of a fic written in celebration of Rupert Graves's birthday and posted on the dilestrade community.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In For the Pull

**Author's Note:**

> The background casefic is very loosely derived from ACD's story "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle".

By the time they finished pulling apart the last file, Sherlock's hair made him look like the Struwelpeter and Lestrade's stomach was issuing a circus-lion growl, to no avail. The case was still uncracked.

"It just doesn't make sense."

"Well, make it, then."

"Make it what?"

"Make it do what it takes to make it make sense!"

"Oh, for — go back to thinking, Lestrade, there's only so much of your syntax  _I_  can take after curfew."

"...it can't be the sister-in-law, anyway. »

"Bright premise, Inspector. I'd boldly go where no CDI has gone before and say "scintillating" if I hadn't established it six hours ago."

"Gimme that statement. Surely, the father's step-brother —"

" _Most_ improbable. He's a Daltonian."

"Yeah, 'coz you definitely need to tell red from green to wield a sodding big machete."

"No, no, no,  _no_. When morning brings Anderson back from whatever underworld he's currently roaming after his IQ, you'll find that the Prozac was hers, not the daughter's, hence she was poisoned  _then_  beheaded so you'd suspect the Panamean gardener. The uncle would have stood a fifty-fifty chance to confuse the pills, all her boxes are identical and unlabelled."

"...Oh."

"My thoughts, exactly – six hours ago."

"But I still don't see —"

"— where she hid the Kar-Bûn-Kel first. I know, I know! Or rather, I don't – yet. Her final message doesn't make any sense. Are you certain it was she who left it?"

"Yeah, sixteenth edition. Graphologist's report. And the tiny fragments of graphite under her nails."

He closed his eyes, felt  Sherlock's body striving unwind at his side, under the press of hour. Feet burrowing under the sea of papers, mussed dark head squeezed against the wall to keep it from nodding off. Lestrade had had half a night of sleep between the last two days. Sherlock had had a catnap, waiting for the crime scene to be cleared. Lestrade often wondered if his room at Baker Street saw him at all, but _this_ premise usually led to fevered scenarios about the extra bedroom and its owner, and he'd learnt to nip it in the bud.

" _Anger_." A miffed Sherlock at his side. "Why _anger_? Of course she was angry! She'd just realized someone had poisoned her. But why on earth write it down? Or is that what therapists advise these days? 'Don't let the small matter of an extremely violent and gory death get in the way of verbalization'? Or wait, what about anagrams? Grane. Nager. Regan. Regan? Lestrade, are you sure you didn't lose a wicked sister somewhere in the count?' "

But Lestrade's eyes were sliding shut again. It was unfair, really, that what was at most a gangly elbow rubbing against his arm should release such warmth, such fancies of closeness. Sherlock's babble flitted over his brain, leaving a trail of odd, disconnected images: a giant wheel of lights; a brown velvet cushion, with a fringe; a cat named _Chat_ , his father's when they were still living with him in the old cobblered cathedral town called —

His head jerked up, only to collide with Sherlock's shoulder. "Wait!" he said loudly, grasping at the name before it ebbed away with the next drowsy tide. "What about Angers? The French town? Suppose she never had time to write the last letter, like the Wilson woman..."

"Your childhood town?" Sherlock's voice sounded amused, indulgent, almost — no. Nip that in the bud. "Don't pull an Anderson, Lestrade, that's unworthy of you. The Countess of Morcar had no known connection to France and no reason to play hide-and-seek across the Channel. No — but — _ooooh_!"

And there it was, the sight that repaid every atom of waiting; every harsh pang in five years' interaction with the naked live wire that was Sherlock. The sight of Sherlock's face, stilled, transfixed; then radiating a warmth of certainty, while his whole body sort of clenched upwards... Jesus, but it was a good thing Sherlock only took the more interesting cases. Lestrade's blood pressure couldn't have taken the sight daily. Or could it? 

"Of course! Oh yes, oh dear Lord, _yes_! Don't you see, Greg? The Kar-bûn-kel! »

"You've - caught me a stone?" _Greg_. Lestrade matched his grin, looking about wildly for a glass of water.

"The Countess spent the first twelve years of her life in Pakistani, which is where her father acquired the jewel." Sherlock, still grinning, rummaged for his mobile under the mess of papers. "The odds that she spoke Pashto as a child... And the brain can be a vicious operator under trauma... Lestrade, you really need to focus on — ah. John! John, it's me. I need you, John."

Lestrade couldn't be more focused. Or angry. Quietly, dangerously, case-fittingly angry. Sherlock's knack for blowing hot and cold on his soul was painful at the best of times, and now was not a good time. Lestrade was tired, Lestrade was hard, and Lestrade was listening to a private conversation between Sherlock and Bedroom Watson.

"And so you will, once you've answered me. Oh come on, John, it's not as if you needed your beauty sleep. Listen. Can you remember any Pashto word that would sound like anger? Even remotely? I said "anger", John. Oh, hilarious. What?"

Lestrade watched as Sherlock pounced on the third file, the one with the graphologist's report. He listened as the speaker uttered a "whoop whoop!" quite unbefitting of England's only consulting detective.

« Yes! Yes! It's half blended into the _r_ , that's why they mistook it for an _e_...  _Angur_. Grapes. The Renaissance style panel in the living room – the one carved with fruit. So obvious. I — what ? Oh yes, your fashionably early shift. How could I forget. Yes, I'll be back in an hour. Good night, then. »

Sherlock paused mid-gesture and brought the phone back to his ear. "And thank you, John" - but Lestrade had heard the tell-tale click. His bubble of Schadenfreude was only nipped when he noticed the empty glass in Sherlock's hand, Sherlock who was all but purring with self-content.

"You're welcome," Lestrade gritted out.

He was met with a steady pellucid stare. "I don't remember you speaking Pashto tonight, Inspector."

"I put you on the trail! If I hadn't mentioned Angers —"

"Your subconscious did, Lestrade. I can hardly offer it a handshake."

Lestrade was almost shaking with frustration. "You wouldn't have thought of switching languages if it hadn't been for me, you great tosser. I gave you an idea. He merely gave you an answer!"

"One I'd have wasted precious minutes looking up myself. In fact, I should thank my stars that I have a flatmate with an inordinate gift for tongues."

"Like he's the only one." The flat was now dealing with two children, Lestrade knew, but it didn't help that Sherlock had flopped back close to him while drinking _his_ water and maligning _his_  language skills.

Then inspiration struck, and he leant forward.

"Bet you I can talk for five whole minutes in a language you won't get."

The pellucid stare turned stony. "I have a French grandmother, Lestrade."

"Got that, yeah."

"And I'm not interested in any patois you might or might not have picked up during your first twelve years."

"Yeah, yeah. So, a language known to a vast community of people, but not you."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed, and Lestrade was reminded once more of the snaky, changeable cat he had loved as a child.

"And if I do get it?"

"I'll —" Lestrade swallowed. "Give you a lift to Baker Street."

« And if I don't ? »

Lestrade leant a bit closer. "You get to shut that smart trap of yours for five - whole - minutes," he said, his eyes on the full, fleshly mouth. They sat on, sizing each other up, oblivious to the discarded files. Was this how it felt, being Sherlock's adversary? His arch-enemy? The adrenaline was a blessing; manna to his veins, after their forty-hour crossing of the desert.

"You're on."

Lestrade inhaled deeply, mouth dry and smiling. "Good." He pivoted so that he faced Sherlock from a more relaxed posture, keeping its target in sight. The inseam of Sherlock's lower lip was still wet from the water he'd sipped. Lestrade licked his quickly.

"I'm just about done being mikkied, treacle," he began. "Pegged for a spanner by a spiv who raises an argy-bargy soon as he spots my two and blues, but can't keep his hooter from the heat longer than a moon." Sherlock blinked. "Yeah, me for the abdabs when you go madalicking and I ask myself, will he end up jammy, that jam roll? Or end tits-up? It's a sore ball-ache, keeping up with your barney rubble, and scratch the bit of ding-dong at the end of the day. So don't give me lair, treacle, or I'll go in for the pull before you can say one and half." (1)

He waited a moment more, but Sherlock, though no longer blinking, was still staring at him in open-mouthed disbelief. Well, he'd had his chance. Lestrade grabbed the slim shoulders and pulled his consultant up against him, angling his head to kiss the handsome spiv full on the lips. He kept it short and merciful – short, that is, of the threatened five minutes. But he kept up the good work, making it strong and telling, making the kiss a vessel into which he poured every unspoken word, urge, emotion; a tender imprint of his soul and lust; making it last until Sherlock's soft gasp into Lestrade's mouth confirmed that he had been well and truly pulled.

"You didn't keep it shut," Lestrade observed with forgivable complacency.

Sherlock shoved him back, the picture of outraged virtue.

"I didn't have to. That was... utter... gibberish!"

"Sure. But it's pretty useful gibberish in my line of trade. Come, I'll drive you home."

Sherlock waited until the long coat had landed on him with a plop to rearrange himself on the sofa, using the garment as a makeshift blanket.

"Oh, so you admit you've lost?"

"Not in the least. I can't have lost if you cheated. Slang is an informal use of language, Lestrade, not a language per se. And you can drive me to Morcar Manor tomorrow."

"I see." Lestrade turned off the lights and crossed back to the couch, lifting folds of cashmere to snuggle in purposefully next to the owner. "G'night, treacle."

He was so focused on keeping his breathing even that he nearly missed Sherlock's soft "Kip tight, Greg".

 

(1) I've had enough being ignored, sweetheart. Taken for a fool by a smart tosser who cocks up a verbal dispute the moment he sees my police car, but can't keep his nose out of danger longer than a month. Yeah, I'm so scared when you run off on a tangent and I'm left wondering, will he be lucky this time, the bloody fool? Will he be dead? It's a heartbreaking task, keeping up with all your trouble, with not even a nice shag to look forward to in the end. Stop messing with me, sweetheart, or I'll kiss the hell out of you before you can say _scarf_.

[Author apologizes for the improbable casserole of slang and rhyming cockney.]


End file.
